The Murakami Factor

A couple times a month I hop on this English conversation platform and talk to people from all over the world. My favorite conversations are with the folks from Japan because I'm kind of enamored with most things from Japan. I'd like to think this obsession started that one afternoon I arrived home to find that my then boyfriend had replaced all of our forks with chopsticks. But that's another story.

My favorite talks are with people from Japan because it gives me an opportunity to casually bring Haruki Murakami into the conversation. My favorite writer is from Japan, I tell them with more enthusiasm than is called for. Then I proceed to tell them about all my favorite Murakami books. There could be worse ways to spend my time. 

I haven't read Murakami in over two years, but whenever my life starts to take surreal turns, I think of him immediately. Years ago, I started calling this phenomenon the Murakami Factor. It would always happen when I'd be reading one of his books, but then I noticed it would happen regardless if I was reading Murakami or not. 

Since the start of this year, it feels like I've stumbled into an alternate reality where everything and everyone has taken on a kind of surreal quality--much like when a Murakami character crawls out of a well, through a tunnel, or down the side of a highway overpass. Intense synchronicities and moments of magic unexpectedly appear in my life, taking me by surprise, and leaving me wonder if I had inadvertently ripped a hole in spacetime. If you've spent enough time with me, you understand how these things can happen. 

The Night Circus was the first book I read this year, so maybe, much like a Murakami novel, it's found its way into my psyche too, altering the way I see the world. The Night Circus is full of illusions and magic held together by characters locked in a competition, enchanted tarot readings, and secrets. But for me, it's as though my entire existence is being held together by the alignment of improbable circumstances and the books that I read--from the unfolding of events that led to my new job at the University to all of the people who have swept through my life. Nothing feels quite real. 

But the moment I become hyperaware of what is happening is when the surreal quality begins to diminish. After all these years, I've yet to discover the secret to making it stay, but I suppose that's the point--it isn't supposed to last. What makes it so magical is the ebb and flow, how it catches me off guard and sweeps me into another world. As I attempt to exist within this ever shifting world, I embrace all the moments for as long as I can, then allow them to fall away, making space for more magic to find me. 

Do the books you read ever take grip on your life, altering the way you see the world? Tell me your stories of magic and wonder!